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Both flipper buttons not working on Fish Tales

VeeMonroe

VeeMonroe

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Aug 4, 2021
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London
All the fuses are good and the flippers flip when we energise the coils with the coil test function.

The flipper buttons appear not to be working. When we run the flipper test, switches F1-F4 remain open whether or not the buttons are pressed.

Both flippers stopped working at the exact same time. When this has happened before, it’s been due to a power surge on turn on blowing both fuses (any ideas how to stop that?). This time, the fuses were fine.

Any ideas? Could this be a software problem? Or do I need to buy new buttons?

[Sorry… it’s always me and it’s always FT...]
 
that's an end of stroke switch, it this physically on the flipper buttons or is it a black plastic square? Failing that there mat be a common to both leaf switches.
 
FT has flipper optos. I would check the 4 fuses and all the connectors on the fliptronics board.
 
paul h said:
FT has flipper optos. I would check the 4 fuses and all the connectors on the fliptronics board.
Click to expand...
We’ve checked all the bank of four fuses on the fliptronics board. I’ll see if there are any other fuses on the board that we might have missed plus the connectors.
 
Sven Normansson said:
Not sure the fliptronic generates the 12V so check all the fuses out of the holders i.e. take them out to check.
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We’ve removed the four fuses from the bank on the board, visually inspected them (they’re glass ones) and used a multimeter across them!
 
Jagspete said:
Chased a flipper fault on my Star Wars for days, before finding a dead fuse that wasn’t in any way visibly blown.
Click to expand...
We’ve got a multimeter, so I’ve already checked that there isn’t a sneaky break in the fuse wires.

BigIan said:
Yeah thought that when I was driving home after posting. Think it was a year later the interlock started appearing
Click to expand...
No interlock. There’s an interlock on our LoTR and I CANNOT begin to explain how much that confused us :oops:

PinIB said:
Reseat the ribbon cables?
Click to expand...
Hmmm. Interesting. We’ve already reseated the ribbon cables connecting up the ColorDMD a couple of times because it’s been fizzing B/W. So, maybe that disturbed the flipper driver cabling somehow.

CHRIS B PINBALLS said:
12v unregulated top left on the driver board
If the coil is working in test it won’t be any of the 4 on the fliptronics board
Click to expand...
Cool. Thanks. I’ll try testing the fuses on the power driver board once I’ve got my smaller son down for a nap.
 
You have a multimeter, so check for 12V on the flipper opto boards. The boards are labelled as to where ground and 12v are. If you have 12v - fine, no need to check fuses etc. Look instead for the switch wiring to the fliptronics.
If you have no 12V then likely its one of the connectors at the bottom left of the power driver board ( not flipteronic ) . check the wiring in that area.
 
pinballmania said:
You have a multimeter, so check for 12V on the flipper opto boards. The boards are labelled as to where ground and 12v are. If you have 12v - fine, no need to check fuses etc. Look instead for the switch wiring to the fliptronics.
If you have no 12V then likely its one of the connectors at the bottom left of the power driver board ( not flipteronic ) . check the wiring in that area.
Click to expand...
We’ve checked the 12V power to the flipper opto boards and they are, indeed, both dead.

We’ve found the plugs on the far-left-hand side of the power driver board with the grey/yellow wires, which appears to be the wires from the optos, and pulled them out and plugged them back in again. We’ve also checked that all the fuses on the power driver board are good with the multimeter.

Flippers are still dead :(
 
VeeMonroe said:
Hmmm. Interesting. We’ve already reseated the ribbon cables connecting up the ColorDMD a couple of times because it’s been fizzing B/W. So, maybe that disturbed the flipper driver cabling somehow.
Click to expand...

Have you done the two on the top left. I had this fault on BSD when I reassembled after a refurb - it was one the ribbon cables. I’ve been lucky for 18 months with no faults so I can’t remember exactly which one.
 
Do you have power on the corresponding header on the PDB? If that is there, you have a break in the wire, measure continuity to the left button to see if that is the case (doesn't hurt to do that in the first place, plug and machine off). If power is missing at the header on the PDB F116 should be blown. You can check for 12V at TP1. Provided F116 is OK measure for 12V AC! on plug J112 in the upper left hand corner of the PDB. If that is missing either the plug in the bottom of the cabinet has burned or your transformer is shot (unlikely). Provided you have 12V AC at J112 and F116 is OK, BR5 is gone and needs to be replaced. Should you have 12V on TP1 but not on J116-J118 you probably lost a trace on the PDB. I'd recommend to send that to someone who can have a look & repair (me :)) to get that fixed. Good luck with the search.
Where in London are you? If it is out West I can pop by one day and fix this.
 
drhex said:
Do you have power on the corresponding header on the PDB? If that is there, you have a break in the wire, measure continuity to the left button to see if that is the case (doesn't hurt to do that in the first place, plug and machine off). If power is missing at the header on the PDB F116 should be blown. You can check for 12V at TP1. Provided F116 is OK measure for 12V AC! on plug J112 in the upper left hand corner of the PDB. If that is missing either the plug in the bottom of the cabinet has burned or your transformer is shot (unlikely). Provided you have 12V AC at J112 and F116 is OK, BR5 is gone and needs to be replaced. Should you have 12V on TP1 but not on J116-J118 you probably lost a trace on the PDB. I'd recommend to send that to someone who can have a look & repair (me :)) to get that fixed. Good luck with the search.
Where in London are you? If it is out West I can pop by one day and fix this.
Click to expand...
We’ve got 12V power at TP1 and F116 is okay. As such, we think we have a break in the wire.

Our next step is going to be to use an ohm meter to check continuity.
 
Progress! Measure at J116-J118 to be sure it is there as well before you disappear down the wrong rabbit hole. Check the IDC connection both ends, sometimes they haven‘t been inserted properly or come loose. You need the right tool to insert, Pinball Heaven carries it if you don’t have it. May otherwise be easier to just pull a new cable.
 
I honestly doubt it will be a broken wire a few things to check make sure you have a good earth on the multimeter by checking another voltage somewhere
Don’t think it’s gospel that it’s j116 it could be any of the 4 connectors for the 12v won’t be the thick wire one as that is the display
Maybe worth swapping them round
Pay great attention to where the wire is pushed in to the connector that is my bet
Also could be a cold solder joint on the back of the board
Another pointer one of the bank of 3 pins is to the cab flipper button s and coin door
The other is for a playfield optos
And one for the display make sure you don’t plug them on 1 pin out if you swap them about the
 
drhex said:
Progress! Measure at J116-J118 to be sure it is there as well before you disappear down the wrong rabbit hole. Check the IDC connection both ends, sometimes they haven‘t been inserted properly or come loose. You need the right tool to insert, Pinball Heaven carries it if you don’t have it. May otherwise be easier to just pull a new cable.
Click to expand...
We’ve checked J116 and J118. The sockets on the PDU board are both powered (to about 15V). Trying to measure the resistance between the plug plugged into J118 and the plug plugged into the opto board showed no connections. We did find a connection between one of the ground pins on the opto board plug and the case ground, but that doesn’t go via J118.

CHRIS B PINBALLS said:
I honestly doubt it will be a broken wire a few things to check make sure you have a good earth on the multimeter by checking another voltage somewhere
Don’t think it’s gospel that it’s j116 it could be any of the 4 connectors for the 12v won’t be the thick wire one as that is the display
Maybe worth swapping them round
Pay great attention to where the wire is pushed in to the connector that is my bet
Also could be a cold solder joint on the back of the board
Another pointer one of the bank of 3 pins is to the cab flipper button s and coin door
The other is for a playfield optos
And one for the display make sure you don’t plug them on 1 pin out if you swap them about the
Click to expand...
We’re just taking a look to make sure that it’s the right connector. Will revert.
 
Okay, it seems the problem is with the grey/yellow wire going into J116.

We‘ve now ordered some wire strippers to strip the grey/yellow wire, so we can test whether the problem is with the wire or the molex connector.

It’s been a problem checking because the manual has conflicting information! This turned out to be because the same wire runs from J116 to the coin drawer interface board, through the Molex connector on the coin draw interface board (presumably tapped vampirically), and on to the left flipper opto board. So when the description of the PDB says of J116 “12V power to coin drawer“ it isn’t entirely wrong, but it isn’t helpful. (We also went on a wild goose chase testing levels and resistances at the actual coin drawer before we realised the interface board was a thing).

Thanks everyone who’s helped with this! 🥰
 
You don’t need to strip the wire (except if you replace with a crimp style connector). Just poke your multimeter into the top of the IDC connector. You can usually see if the cable makes contact, the cutting edges need to be visible above the cable. Always worthwhile pressing the cable in again as suggested above.
 
We’ve posted again about the flipper problem. Unfortunately, FT has been out of action since January…
 
AlanJ said:
get an expert in
Click to expand...
I’m starting to feel that way, but…

We’re deciding if we should just run a wire from the Opto board to the 12V supply in the backbox ignoring all existing wiring.

The issue is that this pin is in such a long-term state that I want to completely dismantle it and we’re a bit stuffed for that if we don’t understand the wiring.
 
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